Takeminakata (タケミナカタ), also known as Minakatatomi or Takeminakatatomi, is a kami in Japanese mythology. Also known as or after Suwa Grand Shrine (Suwa Taisha) in Nagano Prefecture in which he is enshrined alongside his consort Yasakatome, Takeminakata is historically worshiped as a god of wind, water and agriculture, as well as a patron of hunting and warfare, in which capacity he enjoyed a particularly fervent cult from various samurai clans during the medieval period such as the Hōjō or the Takeda. Takeminakata was also held to be the mythical ancestor of certain families who once served at the shrine as priests, foremost among them being the Suwa clan, the high priests of the Upper Shrine of Suwa who were also revered as living vessels of the god.
There are multiple, often conflicting accounts regarding the deity. The mythology of the imperial (Yamato) court as recorded in the Kojiki (ca. 712 CE) and the Sendai Kuji Hongi portrays Takeminakata as a son of the god Ōkuninushi who was defeated by the heavenly deity Takemikazuchi and fled to Lake Suwa. Local traditions from Suwa itself, however, present markedly different narratives. These portray him, for example, as an invading deity (sometimes said to have descended from heaven) who subjugated the area's indigenous gods, as an unseen divine presence that chose a young boy as its human embodiment (the future ancestor of the Suwa clan), or as a serpentine or dragon-like being. As worship of the Suwa deity spread throughout Japan from the medieval period onward, additional legends developed, shaped by regional adaptation and the syncretism of Buddhism and Shinto. These later stories often diverged from both Suwa's own traditions and the Yamato court's account, portraying the Suwa deity, for example, as a king from India who manifested in Japan, or identifying him with figures such as the warrior Kōga Saburō.
Name
The god is named 'Takeminakata-no-Kami' () in both the Kojiki (ca. 712 CE) and the Sendai Kuji Hongi (ca. 807-936 CE).Sendai Kuji Hongi, Book 4 (先代舊事本紀 巻第四), in Variants of the name found in the imperially commissioned national histories and other literary sources include the following:
Minakatatomi-no-Kami (南方刀美神) Minakatatomi-no-Mikoto-no-Kami (御名方富命神) Takeminakatatomi-no-Mikoto (健御名方富命 / 建御名方富命) Takeminakatatomi-no-Mikoto-no-Kami (建御名方富命神)
The etymology of the name '(Take)minakata(tomi)' is unclear. While most commentators seem to agree that take- (and probably -tomi) are honorifics, they differ in how to interpret the other components of the name. Some of the proposed solutions are as follows.
The Edo period kokugaku scholar Motoori NorinagaMotoori, Norinaga (1937). 古事記傳 (Kojiki-den), vol. 14 in Motoori Toyokai (ed.), Motoori Norinaga Zenshū (本居宣長全集), vol. 2. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan. p. 675. (Original work written 1764–1798) explained both take- (建) and mi- (御) as honorifics (称名 tatae-na), with kata (方) as yet another tatae-na meaning "hard" or "firm" (堅). Basil Chamberlain followed Motoori's lead and rendered the god's name as 'Brave-August-Name-Firm' in his translation of the Kojiki.Chamberlain, Basil (trans.) (1882). Section XXXII.—Abdication of the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land. A translation of the "Ko-ji-ki" or Records of Ancient Matters. Yokohama: Lane, Crawford & Co. Ōta Akira (1926) interpreted take-, mi- and -tomi as honorifics and took Nakata (名方) to be a place name: Nakata District (名方郡) in Awa Province (modern Ishii, Tokushima Prefecture), where Takeminatomi Shrine (多祁御奈刀弥神社) stands.Ōta (1926). p. 8. Ōwa Iwao (1990) suggests that the presence of Azumi people in both Awa and Shinano, as well as the possible connection between the Azumi and the Lower Shrine of Suwa, may explain the similarity between 'Takeminakata(tomi)' and 'Takeminatomi'.Ōwa (1990). pp. 214–216. Minakata has also been linked to the Munakata (宗像) of Kyushu. Matsuoka Shizuo (1936) interpreted Minakatatomi as originally being a goddess – citing the fact that the deities of Munakata shrine were female – that was later conflated with the male god Takeminakata. Another explanation proposes minakata to mean "south(ern)" (南方).Miyaji (1931). p. 10. A variant of this hypothesis sees the name as hinting at a connection between the god and metalworking, in which the southern direction is important: Mayumi Tsunetada (1981) for instance proposed that Takeminakata's name refers to the southern pillar of a takadono (a high-roofed house housing a tatara furnace). Gustav Heldt's translation of the Kojiki (2014), where the name is translated as 'Brave Southward Smelter', follows this interpretation. Yet another theory interprets mi(na)- to mean "water" (水), pointing to the god being a water deity perhaps associated with Lake Suwa.Muraoka (1969). pp. 14–16.Okada, Yoneo (1966). Zenkoku jinja saijin goshintokki (全国神社祭神御神徳記), quoted in Muraoka (1969). p. 14.Miyasaka, Mitsuaki (1987). "Kyodai naru kami no kuni. Suwa-shinko no tokushitsu (強大なる神の国―諏訪信仰の特質)." In Ueda; Gorai; Ōbayashi; Miyasaka, M.; Miyasaka, Y. p. 31. The full name is thought to derive from a word denoting a body of water or a waterside region such as 水潟 (minakata, "lagoon" or "inlet") or 水県 (mi(na)- "water" + agata "country(side)"). An alternative explanation for the word -tomi (as well as the -tome in 'Yasakatome', the name of this god's consort) is to link it with dialectal words for "snake" (tomi, tobe, or tōbe), thereby seeing the name as hinting to the god being a kind of serpentine water deity (mizuchi).Tomiku, Takashi (1970). Himiko (卑弥呼). Gakuseisha. p. 48, cited in Kanai (1982). p. 6.
Suwa Daimyōjin
During the medieval and early modern periods, the god enshrined in Suwa Grand Shrine – specifically, in the Upper Shrine (Kamisha) located southeast of Lake Suwa – was popularly known as Suwa Daimyōjin ( / 諏方大明神) or Suwa Myōjin (), a name also applied via metonymy to the shrine itself. The name '(Take)minakata(tomi)' was rarely used, if at all, during this period: indeed, medieval documents from Suwa Shrine simply refer to the god as sonshin / sonjin (尊神, "revered deity") or myōjin (明神, "bright deity" or "manifest deity").Suwa Shishi Hensan Iinkai, ed. (1995). p. 688. This however is hardly unusual, as before the early modern period use of titles such as myōjin or gongen for various gods and their shrines were so widespread that these deities were rarely referred to by their classical names.
Other epithets applied to the Suwa deity include Nangū Daimyōjin (南宮大明神, "Daimyōjin of the Southern Shrine (Nangū)"), Hosshō Daimyōjin (法性大明神, "Dharma-Nature Daimyōjin"), a combination of the two such as Nangū Hosshō Daimyōjin (南宮法性大明神), or Suwa Hosshō Kamishimo (or Jōge) Daimyōjin (諏訪法性上下大明神, "Dharma-Nature Daimyōjin of the Upper and Lower Suwa [Shrines]"). Some of the war banners used by Sengoku daimyō Takeda Shingen (a devotee of the god) for instance contain the inscription Suwa Nangū Hosshō Kamishimo / Jōge Daimyōjin (諏訪南宮法性上下大明神 / 諏方南宮法性上下大明神).Miyaji (1931b). pp. 86–89. A hanging scroll given by Emperor Go-Nara (reigned 1526–1557) to the Upper Shrine in 1553 (Tenbun 22), written in the emperor's own calligraphy, refers to the god as Suwa Shōichii Nangū Hossho Daimyōjin (諏方正一位南宮法性大明神, "Dharma-Nature Daimyōjin of the Suwa Nangū, of Upper First Rank").
A number of explanations have been proposed for the origin of the term Nangū. One theory posits it to refer to the geographical location of the Upper Suwa Shrine, which is located southeast of Lake Suwa, at the southern half of Shinano Province, while another claims it to be derived from 'Minakatatomi' (南方刀美), one of the variant names for the deity, with minakata being apparently understood to mean "south(ern)" (cf. etymology of 'Takeminakata' above).Miyaji (1937). pp. 23-24. The term has also been interpreted to come from the medieval belief that the Suwa deity was the guardian of the south side of the imperial palaceTakei (1999). pp. 130, 142. or the Shinto-Buddhist concept that the god is an enlightened being who manifested in this world, which in Buddhist cosmology is the southern continent of Jambudvīpa.
Aside from Suwa Shrine, Nangū was also applied to Kanayamahiko Shrine in Mino Province (modern Nangū Taisha in Gifu Prefecture) and Aekuni Shrine (南宮大菩薩, Nangū Daibosatsu) in Iga Province (modern Mie Prefecture). A song in the late Heian period anthology Ryōjin Hishō associates the three shrines together, with Suwa Shrine being identified as the "head" of the three Nangū shrines (南宮の本山, nangu no honzan), the shrine at Mino as the "midmost shrine" (中の宮, naka no miya), and the shrine at Iga as the "youngest shrine" (稚の宮, chigo no miya).
Hosshō, meanwhile, is believed to refer to the concept of the dharmakāya (法性身, hosshōshin), the formless, transcendent ultimate truth that is the source of all buddhas, which are its physical manifestations (nirmāṇakāya). A certain medieval legend claims that the Suwa deity chose an eight-year-old boy to become his priest while declaring: "I have no (physical) body and so make this priest my body".
Mythology
In imperial mythology
Parentage Takeminakata is portrayed in both the Kojiki and the Sendai Kuji Hongi as a son of the god Ōkuninushi, although the former does not include him in its genealogy of Ōkuninushi's children.Chamberlain (1882). Section XXVI.—The Deities the August Descendants of the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land The Kuji Hongi meanwhile identifies him as the son of Ōnamuchi (Ōkuninushi) with one of his wives, Nunakawahime of Koshi.Chamberlain (1882). Section XXIV.—The Wooing of the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears.
Defeat by Takemikazuchi
Takeminakata appears in both the Kojiki and the Kuji Hongi in the context of Ōkuninushi's "transfer of the land" (kuni-yuzuri) to the amatsukami, the gods of the heavenly realm of Takamagahara.
When the heavenly deities, headed by the sun goddess Amaterasu and/or the primordial deity Takamimusubi, sent Takemikazuchi and another messenger to demand that Ōkuninushi relinquish his authority over the earthly realm of Ashihara no Nakatsukuni (the "Central Land of Reed-Plains") to Amaterasu's progeny, he told the messengers to consult his son Kotoshironushi, who immediately accepted their demands and advised his father to do likewise. Upon being asked if he had any other sons who ought to express their opinion, Ōkuninushi told the messengers that he had another son named Takeminakata. Takeminakata then appeared, bearing a heavy boulder (千引之石, chibiki no iwa, i.e. a boulder so large it would take a thousand men to pull) on his fingertips, challenging Takemikazuchi to a test of strength. Takeminakata attempted to grab the messenger's arm(s), but Takemikazuchi transformed them into a column of ice and then a sword blade, frightening him. Takemikazuchi then retaliated by grasping and crushing Takeminakata's arm(s) "like a young reed." The defeated god fled to "the sea of Suwa in the land of Shinano," where he was cornered. To save his life, Takeminakata vowed never to leave Suwa and gave his assent to his father's and brother's decision. With Takeminakata's surrender, Ōkuninushi finally ceded the land to the amatsukami and withdrew himself into the unseen spirit world.
Variants and retellings
Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba
The opening section of the Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba, a Nanboku-chō period compilation of legends and other information regarding Suwa Shrine and its festivals completed in 1356, retells the Kuji Hongi version of this story, albeit with Takeminakata's shameful defeat in the hands of Takemikazuchi notably omitted.Suwa Shishi Hensan Iinkai, ed. (1995). pp. 685, 689.